A slide show with music from the BBC of nature and life around the world.
Category: Life
Kiva.org – Loans that change lives
Kiva.org – Loans that change lives
Kiva lets you connect with and loan money to unique small businesses in the developing world. By choosing a business on Kiva.org, you can “sponsor a business” and help the world’s working poor make great strides towards economic independence. Throughout the course of the loan (usually 6-12 months), you can receive email journal updates from the business you’ve sponsored. As loans are repaid, you get your loan money back.
Death of the Music Store
Spinning Into Oblivion – New York Times
Our intention was to offer a haven for all kinds of music lovers and obsessives, a shop that catered not only to the casual record buyer (“Do you have the new Sarah McLachlan and … uh … is there a Beatles greatest hits CD?”) but to the fan and oft-maligned serious collector (“Can you get the Japanese pressing of ‘Kinda Kinks’? I believe they used the rare mono mixes”). Fourteen years later, it’s clear just how wrong our assumptions were. Our little shop closed its doors at the end of 2005.
In the late ’90s, our business, and the music retail business in general, was booming. Enter Napster, the granddaddy of illegal download sites. How did the major record labels react? By continuing their campaign to eliminate the comparatively unprofitable CD single, raising list prices on album-length CDs to $18 or $19 and promoting artists like the Backstreet Boys and Britney Spears — whose strength was single songs, not albums. The result was a lot of unhappy customers, who blamed retailers like us for the dearth of singles and the high prices. Continue reading “Death of the Music Store”
A HISTORY OF VIOLENCE
Edge: A HISTORY OF VIOLENCE By Steven Pinker
This doctrine, “the idea that humans are peaceable by nature and corrupted by modern institutions—pops up frequently in the writing of public intellectuals like José Ortega y Gasset (“War is not an instinct but an invention”), Stephen Jay Gould (“Homo sapiens is not an evil or destructive species”), and Ashley Montagu (“Biological studies lend support to the ethic of universal brotherhood”),” he writes. “But, now that social scientists have started to count bodies in different historical periods, they have discovered that the romantic theory gets it backward: Far from causing us to become more violent, something in modernity and its cultural institutions has made us nobler.” As an example:
Cat burning was a form of zoosadistic entertainment in 16th century Paris, France. In this form of entertainment, people would gather dozens of cats in a net, hoist them high into the air from a special bundle onto a bonfire. According to Norman Davies[1], the assembled spectators “shrieked with laughter as the animals, howling with pain, were singed, roasted, and finally carbonized.”[1]
“[I]t was the custom to burn a basket, barrel, or sack full of live cats, which was hung from a tall mast in the midst of the bonfire; sometimes a fox was burned. The people collected the embers and ashes of the fire and took them home, believing that they brought good luck. The French kings often witnessed these spectacles and even lit the bonfire with their own hands. In 1648 Louis the Fourteenth, crowned with a wreath of roses and carrying a bunch of roses in his hand, kindled the fire, danced at it and partook of the banquet afterwards in the town hall. But this was the last occasion when a monarch presided at the midsummer bonfire in Paris. At Metz midsummer fires were lighted with great pomp on the esplanade, and a dozen cats, enclosed in wicker cages, were burned alive in them, to the amusement of the people. Similarly at Gap, in the department of the Hautes-Alpes, cats used to be roasted over the midsummer bonfire.”[2]
When a 6′ Tiger Shark Bites Both Feet
Tiger Shark teeth are more like needles, than the typical “V’-shaped Great White’s teeth. That is why you don’t see the usual tearing of most shark attacks in these photos, even though the surfer was yanked off of his board, as he was paddling out. (Click on them to enlarge) From the bite pattern. experts estimated that this was a 6 footer. Here is his story:
My girlfriend and eventual wife, Nat and I were in Florida visiting her family. During our stay the surf had been either flat or small, but on this day the surf had come up to overhead or better. We decided to watch the swell for awhile and wait for the tide to drop so the reef break in front of her house would build a little juice.
At about 10:00 am we put on our suits, waxed up the 6’2’s and walked the 2 blocks back up to the beach. Upon arriving, I slapped on my leash, ran down the beach to the water, and quickly began paddling through the soup as we had to go through about five rows of waves to get to the main peak. After three duck dives, I was about 30 meters off shore and still in white water, when I was grabbed from behind by my feet and pulled off my board, directly backwards. I was not shaken but was held for what seemed like forever, in fact, it was most likely two seconds or so. It was a shark…. Continue reading “When a 6′ Tiger Shark Bites Both Feet”
The Psychology of Abu Grahib
Philip G. Zimbardo – Finding Hope in Knowing the Universal Capacity for Evil – New York Times
You had the C.I.A., civilian interrogators, military intelligence saying to the Army reservists, “Soften these detainees up for interrogation.”
Those kinds of vague orders were the equivalent of my saying to the S.P.E. guards, “It’s your prison.” At Abu Ghraib, you didn’t have higher-ups saying, “You must do these terrible things.” The authorities, I believe, created an environment that gave guards permission to become abusive — plus one that gave them plausible deniability.
Chip worked 40 days without a single break, 12-hour shifts. The place was overcrowded, filthy, dangerous, under constant bombardment. All of that will distort judgment, moral reasoning. The bottom line: If you’re going to have a secret interrogation center in the middle of a war zone, this is going to happen. Continue reading “The Psychology of Abu Grahib”
Top 100 April Fool’s Day Hoaxes Of All Time
Top 100 April Fool’s Day Hoaxes Of All Time
(as judged by notoriety, absurdity, and number of people duped)
Tastemakers: Chefs
Tastemakers: Chefs – Forbes.com
You no longer have to live in New York or California to taste the best food in America. That’s because young chefs have set up shop in smaller cities and rural areas, many in order to be closer to the farmers and ranchers who supply their raw materials. For others, it’s because the palates of small town diners have grown more sophisticated.
It’s no wonder Americans now dish out nearly half their food budgets on dining out, according to the National Restaurant Association. Sales in the industry have grown steadily for more than 15 years and are expected to increase 5% in 2007, to $537 billion, with $181.6 billion of that coming from full service restaurants. Click on the link for the list of chefs in pictures, as well as the rest of the article.
Life Re-Enacting Art
A Danish Painting Inspires a Party Here – March 20, 2007 – The New York Sun
“I am a simple person when it comes to art,” Mr. Oden, who grew up in Texas and comes from a long line of cowboys, said. “I don’t like impressionistic and modern. What I really love is paintings of people. I connect more when there’s something I can see — activity — interesting people, doing interesting things.”
Mr. Oden loved the image of the painting so much that he recently invited a group of friends to his house to re-enact the party that the painting depicts: a centennial celebration hosted by the Danish industrialist Jacob Moresco in honor of his textile business, held at his estate, Adelaide, located in Ordrup, Denmark. Here in present-day New York, Mr. Oden asked his guests to dress in white-tie, as the figures in the painting are dressed. Forwarded by Richard Collier. Photo RJ Mickelson.
What’s So Funny? Well, Maybe Nothing
What’s So Funny? Well, Maybe Nothing – New York Times
He and Professor Provine figure that the first primate joke — that is, the first action to produce a laugh without physical contact — was the feigned tickle, the same kind of coo-chi-coo move parents make when they thrust their wiggling fingers at a baby. Professor Panksepp thinks the brain has ancient wiring to produce laughter so that young animals learn to play with one another. The laughter stimulates euphoria circuits in the brain and also reassures the other animals that they’re playing, not fighting.
Humans are laughing by the age of four months and then progress from tickling to the Three Stooges to more sophisticated triggers for laughter (or, in some inexplicable cases, to Jim Carrey movies). Laughter can be used cruelly to reinforce a group’s solidarity and pride by mocking deviants and insulting outsiders, but mainly it’s a subtle social lubricant. It’s a way to make friends and also make clear who belongs where in the status hierarchy.